Visiter helps out Southports Library

Praise indeed for the Southport Visiter which has stepped in to provide a temporary home for the town's Library.

Hold the front page reports that

Southport Library faced a lengthy closure as a result of a £15m refurbishment, sparking a furious reaction from residents and a 7,000-signature petition.

Latest survey shows online revenues to overtake print

This morning's FT carries news of one of the latest surveys of advertising spend from America which predicts that

US online advertising and marketing spending will overtake print this year as traditional media spending continues to decline,

According to the survey by Outsell

Online spending is forecast to rise 9.6 per cent to $119.6bn, while print spending will fall 3 per cent to $111.5bn, according to a survey of 1,000 advertisers by Outsell, a publishing research company.

and Chuck Richard,its Vice President and Lead Analyst was quoted as saying that

“Advertisers are directing dollars toward the channels which generate the most qualified leads and most effective branding. As they emerge from the recession, they need more accountability, and they’re spreading their spending over a widening set of options,

What Tuesday's papers are saying

Mothers betrayed says the headline in the Sun as it refers to the latest on the Jon Venables story and yesterday's news that a convicted rapist was given a 35-year sentence for killing girl he met on a social networking site.

As he began a 35-year jail term last night, it emerged Ashleigh was one of the 6,000 friends - ALL women - he was in contact with through TEN social networking sites.says the paper

Whilst the Mirror reports that Peter Chapman murdered 17-year-old Ashleigh Hall after police failed to lock him up for an arson attack weeks earlier.

According to the Independent,

Police officers also raised the possibility that he was responsible for other, unsolved, sex crimes. But the revelation that he was on the sex offenders' register at the time of the offence – which happened in October 2009 – has raised questions about how, while supposedly being monitored by the police, he was able to use the internet to find a victim for an even more horrific attack.

Who's your child talking to on Facebook tonight? asks the Mail

But back to the Jon Venables story and the Sun claims that he came under suspicion of having child porn only after a member of the public realised who he was,

The person became angry and blew the 27-year-old's cover - forcing cops to pluck Venables to safety.

Meanwhile the Times reports that Jack Straw signalled a major inquiry into the supervision of Jon Venables last night as he rejected pleas to disclose why the child killer was back in custody.

It leads with its latest opinion poll which shows that Labour and the Conservatives are neck and neck in the marginal seats that will determine the outcome of the general election,

The poll shows that the switch of voters from Labour to the Tories is about 1.5 to 2 points higher in the battleground seats than nationally

The true scale of how violent crime has grown under Labour has been disclosed by Whitehall officials. reports the Telegraph.According to the paper

The study, by the independent House of Commons Library, shows violence against the person increased from 618,417 to 887,942 last year.

The Guardian leads with rather a political twist.It reports that

The former US president George Bush has made a direct plea to David Cameron to support the Northern Ireland peace process, amid widespread concern in the US about the Tories' new electoral pact with the Ulster Unionists.

The latest from the Chilcott inquiry and the Independent reports that

Sir Bill Jeffrey, head civil servant at the MoD since 2005, told the Iraq inquiry that problems persisted within the department because of the growing costs of operations overseas and as a result of spending restrictions placed on it by Mr Brown shortly after the March 2003 invasion.

According to the Telegraph,Royal Mail has been accused of buying off postal workers ahead of the general election by agreeing an inflation-busting pay deal which will see postmen working less for more money.

One of the results of the deal according to the Guardian will be the ending of the restrictions of delivering junk mail and the paper predicts a deluge.

The Express reports that owners of dogs will be forced to fork out up to £600 a year for insurance under new Labour plans to tackle so-called “devil dogs”.

The Independent reports from the high-rise flats where a Russian family jumped to their deaths which it says are, for many, the last stop before deportation.

According to the Mail

the family of three asylum seekers tied themselves together with rope before jumping 200ft to their deaths when their application to stay in Britain was rejected.

The Times reports that

Fabio Capello was dismayed to discover that England’s preparations for the World Cup finals had been undermined yet again last night after conversations involving players and coaching staff were secretly recorded.

Finally staying with football,the Guardian reveals that Britain is to give 42m condoms to South Africa in response to a request for an extra billion as part of an HIV prevention drive before the World Cup, the government will announce today.

Thompson too dominant says Hunt

More conjecture on what will happen to the BBC if the Tories win the next election comes from this mornings Indy.

Media editor Ian Burrell interviews shadow Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt who tells the paper that Director General

Mr Thompson was too dominant within the corporation and suggested that the director general should face greater internal scrutiny on whether he was worth his annual remuneration package of £834,000.

If editorial oversight comes at a premium, investigative journalism is simply out of reach for most publications.

In the current online-only business model, true investigative journalism is unsustainable.

That's according to The Business Insider who out went and practiced some true investigative journalism in a story about Facebook.via the Editorialist

The problem with online is that

pages need to be made every day. Who's going to turn over pageviews while all your reporters are off doing stories that -- while immensely helpful to your publication's reputation and brand -- eventually don't pay off in terms of pageviews?

Telegraph claims MOD will censor war reports in the run up to the election

Allegations in the papers this morning that the MOD is planning a gag on the media reporting bad news from Afghanistan ahead of the general election.

The Telegraph leads with the story that

British journalists and TV crews are to be banned from the Afghan front line once a date for the election has been set, while senior officers will be prohibited from making public speeches and talking to reporters

. adding that according to a memo leaked to the paper

MoD websites will also be “cleansed” of any “non-factual” material including anything containing troops’ opinions of the war

I sincerely hope that this is a non story

What Monday's papers are saying

The Independent leads with the story that Labour has been accused of rushing through huge contracts before the election to safeguard the party's 'pet projects'.According to the report it is spending up to £11b

to prevent its pet projects being scrapped by an incoming Conservative government.

There is plenty of other political specualtion.The Times says that a Conservative government could find itself at war with police chiefs amid accusations that some are too close to the Labour Party.The paper has seen a Tory briefing document which attacks the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), which represents the 350 most senior officers in England and Wales.

Meanwhile the Guardian continues to chase Lord Ashcroft.It leads with the story that Lord Mandelson,in a highly personal attack,said that

Ashcroft had Cameron "by the balls", the affair showed Cameron was "too weak to pick a fight with his own party" and the Tories were "fundamentally unchanged".

The Telegraph claims that The Ministry of Defence has been accused of ordering a “truth blackout” over the war in Afghanistan amid warnings it is attempting to “bury bad news” during the election campaign.

The elections in Iraq get a fair amount of coverage.

Bomb blasts and grenade fire failed to deter millions of Iraqis from voting yesterday in an election crucial to the country’s fragile young democracy. says the Times in its lead story whilst Robert Fisk writing in the Independent describes how Once again, a nation walks through fire to give the West its 'democracy'

According to the Guardian meanwhile

The government will attempt today to have a case about torture heard entirely behind closed doors in a move that some lawyers say would extend secrecy to a new area of hearings, overriding ancient principles of English law.

The Mail devotes its front page to the Jon Venables case as it reveals the horror image drawn by Venables just weeks before he killed James Bulger

The Sun meanwhile claims that on a scale of 1-5,Venables' porn images rate 4.According to the paper

Cops seized a laptop after a search at the home of the 27-year-old, who was freed with a new identity after serving time for the murder of James.

Cut spending now is the headline in the Telegraph as it reports that the country’s leading business organisations will warn today that the future of the economy is in jeopardy unless public spending cuts begin within months.

On the same theme the Times reports that Alistair Darling is at loggerheads with business leaders because of his perceived “leisurely” approach to the final Budget before the election.

A crazed man hacked his mother-in-law to death after flying in to Britain to hunt his estranged wife - armed with a "torture kit".reports the Sun

The Express claims that 1000's of prisoners who can’t find work in jail are claiming millions of pounds of tax- payers’ money in unemployment and sickness benefits.

Finally according to MI5 files released today,Cycling tours by Hitler Youth groups and Nazi attempts to establish close links with the Boy Scout movement caused a security panic in prewar Britain.

Whilst the Mail is concerned that we aren't getting enough sleep

The average person sleeps for just over six hours a night, well below the traditionally recommended eight hours.

The Guardian reports that

Police officers were alerted to monitor German students on bicycle holidays in the late 1930s as they stopped at schools, Rotary clubs, factories and church services.

What the Sunday's are saying

According to the Sunday Times,damning reports on the state of the NHS, suppressed by the government, will reveal a neglect of patients’ needs

The harsh verdict on the state of the NHS, after a spending splurge under Labour between 2000 and 2008, raises worrying questions about the future quality of the health service as budgets are squeezed. says the paper

Meanwhile the Sunday Telegraph says that millions of pounds promised for respite breaks for carers has been mis-spent and diverted to plug NHS deficits,adding that

Ministers pledged £150 million to allow those looking after sick, infirm and elderly relatives short periods away from their duties, to prevent them reaching "breaking point".

As Gordon Brown visits Afghnanistan,the Independent repports that

Hundreds of soft-skinned "snatch" Land Rovers of the type implicated in the deaths of at least 36 British troops over the past decade are finally to be phased out after a bitter five-year campaign.

The Sunday Times reports that Britain's special forces have suffered the worst blow to their fighting strength since the second world war, with 80 members killed or crippled in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile the Observer reports that

Gordon Brown was embroiled in a furious row when former prime minister John Major accused him of using British troops as a "party political prop" on a surprise visit to thank soldiers in Afghanistan. Major condemned Brown's decision and said he had orchestrated a "cynically-timed political stunt".

It leads with an exclusive claiming that senior City financiers allied to the wealthy consortium planning a takeover of Manchester United claim Sir Alex Ferguson is supporting the controversial bid.

The Telegraph meanwhile says that the imposition of VAT on groceries is being actively considered by Whitehall officials as a radical means of reducing the national deficit.

So politically-sensitive is the move that all the talks are occurring "under the radar", according to retail industry insiders.

says the paper

Meanwhile according to the Mail on Sunday,o of the Camerons' closest friends, senior Tory MP Ed Vaizey, raises the extraordinary possibility that Samantha Cameron could vote for Labour in a film to be broadcast tomorrow.

The story of Jon Venebles continues to dominate.According to the Sunday Mirror,James Bulger’s killer Jon Venables was sent back to jail on suspicion of child porn offences,

The Observer reports that it has been told that Venables had descended into a "persistent state of self-disclosure" in which he felt compelled to tell others his real identity in the months before his return to prison,

The week's other big story gets a lot of pages.According to the Independent,The Lord Ashcroft affair is causing deep divisions at the heart of David Cameron's inner circle,

According to the Telegraph,The key civil servant who oversaw the terms on which Lord Ashcroft took up his seat in the House of Lords,Sir Hayden Phillips, said yesterday that the Tory peer had done nothing illegal.

However the Observer says that questions were raised over whether the Queen and the former prime minister, Tony Blair, had granted him a peerage under false pretences.

The News of the World reveals that Jade Goody has made certain her playboy widower Jack Tweed wasn't left a penny of her £3million fortune.

Despite naming him as a beneficiary - which saved more than £1million in inheritance tax - tragic Jade's carefully written deathbed will ensures the 22-year-old nightclub promoter can't touch any of the cash she salted away for her two precious sons.

Finally the Independent dedicates its front page to the 100th International Women's Day tomorrow reporting that

Just 19.5 per cent of the MPs in Britain are women; a record so poor that it puts the UK 69th in the world for our proportion of female parliamentarians – behind Afghanistan, the United Arab Emirates and Pakistan

Testing the boundaries

Yesterday's wrap around cover for the LA Times certainly came close to the boundaries of what is advertsising.

It featured the face of Johnny Depp in the film Alice in Wonderland superimposed over what looks like the usual front page complete with masthead.

According to the New York Times

The top editor of The Times, Russ Stanton, and several of his deputies vigorously opposed the ad before it was published, but they were overruled by the paper’s business executives, according to people with direct knowledge of the dispute, who were granted anonymity to discuss private conversations.

What Saturday's papers are saying

Gordon Brown's appearence before the Chilcott committee is the main subject for some of the papers.

The Times claims that

Former commanders accused Gordon Brown of deliberately misleading the Iraq inquiry after he blamed the military for failing properly to equip the Armed Forces for war.

and according to Admiral Lord Boyce

“He’s dissembling, he’s being disingenuous. It’s just not the case that the Ministry of Defence was given everything it needed

The day Gordon Brown came clean on Iraq is the headline in the Guardian as it reports that he told the Chilcot inquiry that Tony Blair did 'everything properly' and rejected criticisms over equipment

Meanwhile the Independent reports that

Iraqis go to the polls tomorrow in an election which has led to increased tensions between the country's three main communities after a fierce campaign in which some candidates were banned as former supporters of Saddam Hussein's party.

The other story of the day continues to rumble on.The Telegraph reports that Jack Straw has agreed to meet with James Bulger’s mother to discuss the return to prison of Jon Venables, one of her son's killers.

Meanwhile the Mail reveals that Jon Venables worked for years as a nightclub bouncer despite his violent past

His bosses had no idea he was one of the country's most notorious killers and were happy to hand him the responsibility for ejecting troublemakers from a series of venues.

The Sun claims that Jon Venables was thrown back in jail over an allegation that he committed a sickening sex crime,

Whilst the Mirror says the 27-year-old hit the nightclubs to get smashed on cider and cocktails while snorting cocaine and popping ecstasy pills.

The Independent leads with the story that Bob Geldof and the Band Aid trust are to report the BBC to the broadcasting regulator Ofcom over a World Service report that millions of pounds raised for famine victims in Ethiopia in 1985 were actually spent on weapons.

Election fever in the Telegraph which says that plans that could lead to the closure of hundreds of hospital wards are being drawn up but will not be made public until after the general election,

Meanwhile the Times continues to persue Lord Ashcroft as it claims the Tory Party’s last general election campaign was partly financed with a £750,000 loan from an offshore haven

As in the Guardian which reports that the Conservative party deputy chairman is accused of providing loans of more than $5m to the disgraced former premier of the Turks and Caicos, Michael Misick, through the local bank Ashcroft controls. According to his opponents, he "ought to have been aware that Mr Misick was corrupt".

Record numbers of the over-55s want to move abroad because they are fed up with Britain's soaring crime rates, its creaking economy and the rotten weather.

reports the Mail

The weather makes the front of the Express as well as it reports that the Met Office is to stop making ­seasonal forecasts after coming under fire for getting everything wrong.

The Guardian reports the increasing row between Turkey and the US as the former has threatened to downgrade its strategic relationship with the US amid nationalist anger over a vote in the US Congress that defined the mass killings of Armenians during the first world war as genocide.

The mother of a five-year-old British boy abducted at gunpoint in Pakistan has made an impassioned plea to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to save her son as the kidnappers’ silence raises fears for his safety. reports the Times

According to the Telegraph his denied that it was an "inside job" involving people connected with members of his own family.

More football revelations in the Sun as it shows pictures of Man United's Patrice Evra gets a kiss from a leggy blonde in a budget hotel at nearly 2am and in the Mirror on th night that John Terry tried to bed me

Finally reports the Telegraph,a German tabloid has advised Greeks to adopt a more Germanic work ethic – by rising earlier and working harder – in order to solve the country's financial crisis.

Trinity to continue with cost focus as advertisng revenues continue to fall

Results out this morning for Trinity Mirror confirm the continued impact of the advertising downturn on local papers.

Reporting its 2009 preliminary results,the company reported a 41 per cent drop in profits down to £72.7m, from £124.2m, with revenues down 11.8 per cent.

The group announced that its total costs had been reduced by over £60m with £40m of that being down to what it termed structural reorganisation.

It expects advertising revenues,already showing upward trends towards the end of last year, to improve in the current year.

Its chief executive Sly Bailey says that the board anticipates a satisfactory performance in 2010 whilst recognising the economic difficulties,and promised to keep the focus on cost cutting.

IPL live on ITV

Quite an unexpected cricketing coup for ITV.

The Independent station has just announced that it has picked up the rights to the IPL and ITV4 will be showing 59 of 60 live matches over 45 days.

There is a fair chance that it secured the rights for a nominal sum after the collapse of Setanta last year.

The tournument,the richest cricketing festival in the world is already being show on You Tube.

It all begins on the 12th March

Journalists should engage in conversation

When i first started this blog around the end of 2006,so many of the tags were to do with citizen journalism and user generated content.

The words seem to have fallen in to disuse in recent times sometimes maybe unfairly.

Kellie Maddox reports on the comments of the Editorial Development Director at RBI, a big B2B magazine and website publisher in the UK,Karl Schneider.

The benefits of UGC – aside from the obvious financial benefits of UGC (lots of content at little cost), Karl emphasised how important ‘community’ engagement around a website is in the production of UGC. He also pointed out that there was no set model of UGC that would work for users across the board – depending on the publication/topic, different groups respond differently when engaging with media products. He said, in order to understand users’ motivation to produce content, we should identify common threads e.g. why do users respond to that? In what way do they respond?

Ht-Suw Charman-Anderson

Is it more invasive just because some of us don't have a press pass

An interesting prespective over at Media Shift which asks if journalist's photos from Haiti are an invasion of Privacy.

Michelle May,who has just returned from the country says that

a rumor is circulating among volunteers that we should remove any photos of our time at the hospital from Facebook and other websites, unless we had received permission to take photographs.

This ethical debate is inspired by the ability of anyone to easily create and distribute media such as photos, videos or blog posts. Professional media have long been training their cameras and mikes on the victims of natural disasters, but now anyone can do it, too. Is it more invasive just because some of us don't have a press pass?

What Thursday's papers are saying

Lord Ashcroft,what did Jon Venables do, and the death of Michael Foot are the main themes this morning.

According to the Telegraph,Jack Straw has said that it is not in the public interest to disclose why the killer of James Bulger, was sent back to jail despite the Home Secretary saying that people have a right to know.

A theme taken up by the Express which reports that

Government officials have slapped a worldwide injunction on disclosure of any details about murderer Jon Venables breaching the terms of his release.

The Sun leads with a report that the father of murdered toddler James Bulger last night led demands for the TRUTH about killer Jon Venables' return to jail.

Acording to the Mail though,he was sent back to jail after a workplace brawl,

The 27-year-old was said to have been recalled to prison after 'flipping' and attacking a work colleague.

Meanwhile according to the Mirror,hislife has descended into one of drug abuse and brushes with the law since he left jail nine years ago.

The 27-year-old began snorting cocaine and popping ecstasy pills while throwing himself into his local night club scene.

Both the Independent and the Guardian turn up the heat on the events surrounding Lord Ashcroft

Lord Ashcroft kept William Hague in the dark for years about his controversial tax status, the shadow Foreign Secretary admitted last night as new details about the peer's donations to the party emerged.

reports the former.

Hague's disclosure put pressure on himself and the party to explain why they have repeatedly evaded questions about the matter in a succession of recent interviews.

says the Guardian

The Times leads with the story that the families of troops who were killed in poorly protected Land Rovers have urged the Iraq inquiry to challenge Gordon Brown tomorrow on his funding of frontline forces.

The death of Michael Foot at the age of 96 is covered in most of the papers

Baroness Thatcher, who faced Mr Foot in many fiery clashes across the despatch box in the House of Commons, said she was "very sorry to hear the news" of his death. says the Telegraph

His legacy is significant says the Independent

Not many British politicians have been more reviled than the donkey-jacket wearing, unpatriotic, election-losing Foot. And yet there was not the faintest edge of ancient grudge in any of the generous tributes paid to the former Labour Party leader yesterday from across the political spectrum.

An incorrigible rebel, the former Labour leader failed politically but always followed his mighty heart is how the Guardian describes his legacy.

The Times reports that cChildren’s heart surgery has been suspended at one of the country’s leading cardiac centres,The John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, after four patients died during operations.

According to the Mail,Headteachers will be forced to list children as young as five on school 'hate registers' over everyday playground insults.

Meanwhile according to the Telegraph,

Traditionalist bishops and peers fear that vicars could be taken to court and accused of discrimination if they turn down requests to hold civil partnerships on religious premises.

News from America and the Guaradian reports that Republicans have rejected Barack Obama's offer of compromise over his health reform bill and prepared for one of the biggest battles of recent US political history

The Times says that the president has declared for the first time yesterday that he was prepared to steamroller his troubled health reform legislation through Congress with only Democratic support

According to the Independent

The prospects for the first negotiations involving Israel and the moderate Palestinian leadership for over a year have increased after the nations of the Arab League gave qualified support to a US proposal for indirect talks between both sides.

Finally Maddie is back in the news.The Sun carries pictures of ittle girl's rag doll whichcould have been given to Madeleine McCann by those who snatched her.

According to the paper

The cuddly plaything was among evidence suggesting Maddie was held at a remote house - but Portuguese cops abandoned the line of inquiry.

Inside the M60 -A Manifesto

Hyperlocal is the thing now and for the past couple of months,myself and fellow Manchester journalist Louise Bolotin have been working on the concept of a new hyperlocal project for Manchester.

Going under the title of Inside the M60 will be a local hyperlocal site supplying relevant news and information to the community of Greater Manchester with the expressed purpose of giving a voice to the opinions of the disenfranchised community.

Inside the M60 will fill a niche created by the failures of local journalism, taking advantage of the low entry and running costs of the today’s media platforms and fully utilising the tools of modern journalism.

It will address the issues of concern to the general population of the city, scrutinising the policies of local government and other public and private bodies within the city but also unafraid to tackle even the smallest issues that affect the population of Greater Manchester.

We both firmly believe that as we approach the end of the first decade of the 21st century, the country stands on the cusp of dramatic social and economic changes. The causes and consequences of the financial crisis of 2007-08 have yet to be resolved, there are massive social issues to address and our lifestyles need to adapt to the pressing environmental issues threatening the planet.

Next year’s elections will see the country make a choice for the future as distinct as those made in 1945 and 1979.

There will be a focus on community, with whoever wins the next election pledging to initiate community action driving change upwards.

This coincides with the collapse of local journalism as the newspaper industry has failed to respond to the challenges of the internet and the decline of advertising.

As a result of cost-cutting measures, local papers have by nature become more insular, relying more and more on “churnalism” and breaking that crucial relationship with their readership and their customers, the advertisers.

There are, therefore, opportunities for niche journalism projects with a small cost base that take advantage of the low cost of entry and can act as the voice for these communities.

At the same time, there are many communities that have become essentially disenfranchised from their city and society in general. Voting in local and national elections is at an all-time low, reflecting both apathy for the political system (for example, exasperation with this year’s parliamentary expenses scandal) and a consensus that “my vote has little or no effect”.

There exist communities where three generations have effectively slipped out of the work ethic, living on benefits as a matter of course and creating almost an underclass of society that exists in parallel to the economy.

In Manchester, the poorest communities live almost within shouting distance of the bright lights and investment of the city centre and yet have little or nothing in common with it. At the same time, technology has become alien to them and they are in danger of being on the wrong side of an increasing digital divide.

Keep reading this blog for more announcements and ways in which you can take part
 

What Wednesday's papers are saying

One of the killers of James Bulger is back in prison and the tabloids this morning cover the story intensely.

Jon Venables, now 27, was locked up after breaching his parole. Depending on the reasons for the recall, he could now be facing a life sentence.says the Mail

He broke strict rules which include a ban on him contacting his fellow murderer Robert Thompson or the Bulger family

.says the Sun adding that

The mother of murdered James said last night that Venables' arrest was "justice" for her son.

Laurence Lee – Venables’ solicitor at his trial – said he was “shocked”.
He said: “If someone said to me that one of James Bulger’s killers had been returned to prison I’d have put a lot of money on it not being Jon, because he was by unanimous agreement the less evil of the two.”

reports the Mirror

The row over Lord Ashcroft continues.According to the Guardian,revenue investigators were last night facing demands to launch an inquiry into the tax status of Lord Ashcroft,

whilst the Independent reports that

William Hague has come under pressure to explain why he stretched his powers as Tory leader "to the very limits" in 2000 by begging Tony Blair to ensure that Lord Ashcroft was granted a peerage.

According to the Times,

Senior Tories expressed growing unease over the Lord Ashcroft tax saga as new evidence emerged to contradict the billionaire donor’s account of how he became a peer.

Events at the BBC are the main subject for the Telegraph.Acording to the paper,it will be forced to disclose its stars’ pay under a Conservative government as the centrepiece of measures to cut the cost of the public broadcaster.

The Sun reports that up to 600 jobs will be cut, with the £600million saved going into "quality" programming but adds that

last night 52 per cent of viewers insisted the cuts are NOT enough, and only 12 per cent said the BBC should increase the licence fee instead.

Whilst television matters also dominate many of the other papers.The Independent reports that

General elections will be transformed by an historic agreement reached last night under which Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg will face questions from voters in three 90-minute live television debates.

The Mail chooses to concentrate on the fact that it will take place in near silence after the broadcasters were forced to agree to a ban on clapping.

According to a joint study by the Guardian and the thinktank Civitas.

More than a third of NHS primary healthcare trusts, which fund hospitals in England, are running deficits that have led to a cutback in surgical operations and seen calls to close casualty departments,

Many of the papers report that South African President Jacob Zuma has urged the lifting of sanctions against Zimbabwe if progress is to be made in resolving Zimbabwe's political crisis.

The Mail follows up its lead story from yesterday as it reveals the gang of teens that stalks the streets around 'arson death' home

Last night neighbours pointed the finger at the notorious Overslade Crew, a gang of about 30 teenagers who have been known to set fires and smash bottles around Rugby, in Warwickshire.

Finally ahead of tonight's England friendly the Times reports the comments of their manager who has blamed the off-field problems that have threatened to undermine England’s World Cup hopes on the vast wealth accumulated by many of his players.

Why I am not lamenting 6Music but why I worry about local news

So the news is out.

The BBC's Mark Thompson has announced plans to scale back its £3.5bn a year operations,pledging to the public that the corporation with its guaranteed licence fee income, did not “try to do everything”.

So what won't it be doing? Well it will slash its radio budget by closing the digital radio stations 6Music and Asian Network.It will reduce by around a quarter its budget for running online operations and will pledge a new cap of spending for 2.5 per cent of the licence fee on overseas acquisitions and 9 per cent on sports rights.

It has also pledged to bring its overheads into line from around 12 per cent of the licence fee to 9 per cent

The middle classes are up in arms about 6Music.Quite frankly I have never listened to it,so don't share the twitterati clamour about defacing the memory of John Peel.Anyone surely Radio 1 is the place for breaching the barriers of new music.

I am more concerned about why there isn't such a clamour for the closing of the Asian network.

I am also concerned that the corporation has not addressed other areas where it is playing on a lopsided arena,notably its magazine arm and its acquisition of Lonely planet magazine last year.

As for the website,I also have worries.Which information is going and who will fill it.The BBC for all its critics supplies news and information which commercial operations are unwilling or unable to provide.

It says it will allow local papers to develop local services but I worry.Local websites, it says

" will be refocused, meanwhile, to carry only news, sport, weather, travel and local knowledge content.

Whether this gives an opportunity to those of us who want to serve the hyperlocal market remains to be seen.Maybe a sweetener would be to give us some of the license fee that they will save?

The rush to go online

A survey of of magazine web sites by the Columbia Journalism Review has shown that there are varying standards between the print and online editions of many magazines.

In particular,over nearly 60 per cent of respondents admitted to either less or no copy editing online as well as less vigorous fact checking and no indication to readers that mistakes had been made.

There was also evidence that decison making structues for online sites varied dramatically with people working for the print side expected to work online without being given adequate training in writing for the web.

The survey also found a number of advantages in using Independent web editors.They was a correlation between their use and profitablity as well as a tendency to use dedicated web staff.

Interestingly most publications didn't distinguish between selling advertising online and for print.

Although those involved with magazines and their Web sites have varying levels of knowledge and sophistication about their métier, it’s fair to say that the proprietors of these sites don’t, for the most part, know what one another is doing, that there are no generally accepted standards or practices, that each Web site is making it up as it goes along, that it is like the wild west out there.

Seperating fact from fiction

Since the dawn of reporting,journalists have come under scrutiny for how much of their copy is fact or fiction.

Today's Independent looks at the story of Ryszard Kapuscinski where yesterday,

a biography was published in Kapuscinski's native Poland which portrays much of his work as invention. Kapuscinski – Non Fiction, by the Polish journalist Artur Domoslavski, says he "consciously built on his status as a legend" and "extended the boundaries of reportage far into the realm of literature".

Ryszard Kapuscinski who died in 2007,dedicated forty years of his career to Africa and became famous for books, such as The Emperor (1978), on the fall of t Haile Selassie of Ethiopia and Another Day of Life (1976), a closely observed account of the collapse of Portuguese colonialism in Angola, .

Domoslavski says that the journalist famed for books such as The Soccer War and Imperium never met Guevara and many other figures he claimed to have known as a globetrotting reporter. His claims that he narrowly escaped death by firing squad are dismissed as fantasy; his insistence that his father was a prisoner of war in Russia, a lie.